


What Doesn't Kill You (Sherlock 4x3 Fallout)

by mantra4ia



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Aftermath, Bad News, Between the scenes: The Final Problem, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Love You, It's not fair, Moving Out, Post TFP, Reconciliation, Sherlolly - Freeform, Subtext, The Final Problem, What happens now?, bad day, bad week, bad year, but we heal stronger, sick day, we hurt each other, what have we done, what is love?, words as weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9389501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantra4ia/pseuds/mantra4ia
Summary: "Where do we go from here Molly?Look what we've done to each other Sherlock?"Disclaimer: This is my original work of fiction based on the source material of BBC Sherlock. Characters referenced and some dialogue quoted are from The Final Problem which is the original work of Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, BBC Sherlock.





	1. A Thinly Veiled Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Molly Hooper is not having a good day. This is why.  
> (contains references from BBC Sherlock series 4 and prior)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If it's true, then say it anyway.  
> If it could save her, say it anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italics indicates phrases connected to memories, or things recalled in the mind palace  
> Bold indicates ideas or words of emphasis.
> 
> I’m giving you a nightcall to tell you how I feel  
> I’m gonna drive you through the night down the hills  
> I’m gonna tell you something you don’t want to hear.

MUSIC: London Grammar “[Nightcall](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZYw0MQp_fI)”

Somewhere beyond him, there was a heated, gray conversation going on that Sherlock didn’t much care about between his brother and his best friend. A family fall-out.

“It has to crash in the sea,” Mycroft demanded.

John detested the idea on principle. Statistically, even if there were rescue personnel on the ground (which was unlikely, given the little girl in the air could be anywhere) the notion of surviving a water landing was grim; the plane could very well disintegrate on contact with the freezing ocean. Without even visual contact, the idea was a death sentence. “What about the girl?”

Ever the pragmatist, Mycroft replied, “Well, obviously, Dr. Watson, she's the one who's going to crash it.”

“No. We could help her land it.”

“And if we fail? How many will die then?”

John was a frayed wick, burned on both sides by reason that was going to simultaneously save and kill hundreds of lives. “How are we going to get her to do that?”

Mycroft was not entirely unsympathetic to Watson’s plight as his language warped from numbers and figures to sentiment:“I'm **afraid** we're going to have to give her **hope**.” _Caring is not an advantage Sherlock - Human error._

Eurus seemed to have an efficient answer to that: block out the distraction altogether. “Now, back to the matter in hand,” and suddenly the background conversation took on technicolor relevance when Sherlock saw the coffin.

“It’s for someone who loves Sherlock. So who loves you?” _What I’m trying to say, I mean, if there’s - if there’s anything you need, anything at all, you can have me - Tell me what’s wrong - You wanted to see me - I’m sorry, Sherlock asked me to come - Caring is not an advantage_.

“Someone is about to die.”

“ **Molly Hopper.** ”

Eurus spoke as sweetly as if she were telling her brother a nursery rhythm. "Make her say it."

"Say what?" John asked.

"Obvious, surely?" The flintlock of the threat clicked into place.

John stilled and spoke a vehement, "no." 

"Yes," Sherlock countered, not wanting to waste another moment.

However **no** was not an answer to Eurus. What John really meant beneath the word was a command. "No, Sherlock, don't you do this. Don't you dare." Wordlessly, he tried to impress the subtext upon Sherlock with every fiber of his marrow.

But he was too late; the clock had already started.

* * *

“Hi, this is Molly at the dead centre of town.” Sherlock held his breath. Dammit Molly, for the sake of us all, refrain from making morbid attempts at humor! “Leave a message.”

John tapped his foot. His hands, normally battle steady, began to twitch at the thumbs like an incessant prickling. “Go on, Molly, pick up.” He owed her so much within their constant, unspoken tag-team approach to life. Molly had kept him on the wagon after Mary with raising Rosie, and helped him to raise and check Sherlock in turns. His instincts to protect Molly, as he would with Rosie, revved in place: an impotent wheel in a rut. “Just bloody pick up” John cursed, heavy with the knowledge that when he thought his words were protected in confidence, he'd inadvertently given away how important Molly was. She saw through Sherlock. By saying it out loud in therapy, John had probably set the East Wind in motion.

Meanwhile Molly’s phone rings and vibrates on the kitchen counter-top just as she finishes throwing up into the kitchen sink. She doesn’t even bother running the water because screening the caller make her want to throw up again. With a bit of smug satisfaction, as much as someone in a pathetic puddle of sick can muster, she lets the call drop into her voicemail. If it’s important, she thought, Sherlock will leave a message. That’s what people do. But he never leaves a message. As the mobile falls silent, Molly proceeds to slice and wring half an orange for her tea with a bit too much vigor, as if the orange is a stand in for someone’s neck. The second time the phone rings, she’s caught by surprise and nicks her finger. Not a deep nick, barely a paper-cut, but that would fit with the pattern of her day, she might as well squeeze some citrus on it as well she mumbles to herself to try and stem the profanities.

She was never this popular at this or any other time of day unless Bart’s was short staffed. But when Molly looked down at her phone again to see Sherlock’s name once more, she braced herself against his sarcastic ire for not answering the first time, and responded by putting her foot down. “Hello, Sherlock. Is this urgent? Because I'm not having a good day.” He couldn’t even begin to understand.

A sense of relief flooded Sherlock’s cold and icy fingers. Thank goodness, getting her to answer was an unexpected challenge, the rest he knew how to manage. “Molly, I just want you to do something very easy for me and not ask why.“ _I can do anything you need - Sherlock, make her say it._

Molly’s usual filter was ripped to pieces when she said, “Oh, God! Is this one of your stupid games?” There was a tinge of regret whenever she was cruel to Sherlock, but the sting had lessened with time like building an immunity. There was no way to be sure if she was actually speaking with Sherlock or that hollow husk of a man who was high out of his mind because he thought substance abuse refined him, when really it diluted everything good and brilliant and wonderful about him.  

Sherlock recalculated the perceived difficulty level and saw in his mind more seconds whittling off the clock. _I can do a_ _nything at all._ “No, it's not a game. I **need** you to help me.” **That** was a critical mistake, by the defensive tick at the corner of Molly’s mouth he knew to deduct another 1.4 seconds from his safety window. _What could I need from you? – Nothing._

“Look, I'm not at the lab.” Molly was alone in her flat _– so why did she look sad?_

Sherlock tried to redirect the conversation back to pertinent bare-essentials. He did not have enough time in the bank to trade for an opening chat that might soften her demeanor and make an easier request. “It's not about that.”  

“Well, quickly, then. Sherlock!” Molly’s head was pounding and the kettle she had on the stove was cooling every moment; by contrast she felt her ears burning hotter.

Sherlock felt the urge to laugh for a second. She was telling him to be quick? The irony, but it also prompted him to wonder why he was being so painfully slow. What exactly was holding him back? As he glanced at her over the monitor, he could see her skin was a sallow color, there were dark wells under her eyes and a vein more prominent than usual on her temple that told of dehydration. Irritability went in-hand with the other symptoms as Molly pressed, “what is it, what do you want?” Sherlock postulated that observing her was slowing down his performance. _You are allowing emotion to cloud your judgement. - I’ve always been able to keep a distance._

The lights clicked to red. 'Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick tick.' Sherlock forced himself to blink, to break contact with Molly. And for a moment it did the trick. He could focus.

“Molly, please, without asking why, just say these words.”

“What words?” Normally Sherlock went straight for the point; this conversation, the longest they’d ever had by phone really, was like pulling the teeth of a child who’d misbehaved and broken something.

“I love you.” The words on the name plate seemed so much longer tripping off the tongue. In the background, he could hear Mycroft physically wince, contract and become shorter, and John click his tongue to back of his teeth and bury his face in his hand.

Molly's next words slapped everyone in the room, Sherlock and his accomplices to this crime, full in the face. “Leave me alone.” Molly’s hand shook as she went for touch screen in a mixture of nausea and disgust.

“Molly, no, please, no!” The rest of Sherlock’s timetable was obliterated in favor of concentrating on the next few pivotal seconds. If Molly abandoned him now, who knew if Eurus would give him another chance to call, and even in the best case how much time would be wasted? How many things left unsaid? Too many. “Don't hang up! **Do not** hang up!”

Ice cooled the ire as Eurus’ voice cut through them all. “Calmly, Sherlock, or I will finish her right now.”

Molly was in a panic, a pure and proper panic like she could feel his stare on her, pitying. “Why are you doing this to me?! Why are you making fun of me?!“ _Don’t make jokes Molly - Molly please don’t feel the need to make conversation, it’s really not your area - For the sake of law and order I suggest you avoid all future attempts at a relationship Molly._

That was a great question, emotional and raw, that Sherlock couldn't answer on pain of her death. There was no reason in it to appeal toward, only a throbbing, dejected anguish. Molly was powerful and passionate, but Sherlock had to find that other side of her. The strong, elegantly brilliant side. “Please, I swear, you just have to listen to me.”

“Softer, Sherlock.” Eurus prompted in satin threats.

She had always helped him before. Steady, reliable, strong. Molly would help him now, because now more than ever the need was immense. “Molly, this is for a case. It's... it's a sort of experiment.”

She imagined hitting him then. _Stop it_ *slap* _Sherlock. Just stop it_ *slap.* Her thoughts screamed and her jaw ached from holding it all back. “I'm not an experiment, Sherlock,” and I’m so bloody cold and tired.

 “ _No_ ,” Sherlock backtracked. Molly was practical and clinical but that part of her was being protected now, guarded mercilessly by her heart. He studied John from the corner of his eye and summoned up all the dull lessons that he’d endlessly tried to impress about caring: “ _Will caring about them help save them?”_ John’s reply was the double-edged sword: “ _No_.” Blunt in its simplicity, but said with such assertiveness that it sounded almost like _yes_ , it might work a miracle. And so it prompted Sherlock’s tumbling of instinctual words. “No, I know you're not an **experiment** ," the word was bitter on his tongue. He had said it so many times with joy, but now when he spoke, he heard Eurus in his voice. "You're my **friend**. We're **friends.** ” Each **friend** cut Molly like an unfinished wire, the pain channeled into the fingertips biting her palm, “but, please, just say those words for me.”  

“Please don't do this.” Molly could feel the pressure behind her eyes that she knew to be tears. Sherlock couldn’t begin to understand how this felt. The embarrassment, the worthlessness, the value that he placed on her feelings was only worth solving a single case. “Just... just don't do it.”

“It's very important.” Sherlock began, and put every ounce of effort into making it sound like ‘you do count, you’ve always counted’ in the hopes that she could hear the inflection. “I can't say why. But I promise you, it is.” Please Molly, please just **listen**. It’s still **me talking**. You know me.

“I **can't** say that. I **can't**... I **can't** say that to you.”

Insufferable, perplexing, inciting woman! “Of course you can!” Don’t you understand what’s at stake here, Sherlock thought, even as he tried to sweeten his tone. **“Why can't you?”** No, of course you don’t understand, you **can’t**. You need to cut back the skin of a person just to be satisfied with what you already know is inside, just to be thorough!

John exhaled so loudly Sherlock thought Molly might overhear. What could that possibly contribute to this exchange! Meanwhile John focused all his energies into not punching Sherlock in the back of the head. What right did he have to be frustrated with Molly when he was so incredibly thick?!

“You know why.” Molly propped herself on the counter to force the air out into speech.

“No, I don't know why.” Sherlock’s mind was burning through the possibilities now, and even Mycroft couldn’t believe the simplicity of the obstacle. He might be the Ice Man, he might not have much of a heart, but what little there was wanted to help his little brother understand. How could he be so limited that he missed the story of every classic goldfish film?

Molly sighed. “Of course you do.” You’re brilliant Sherlock, so don’t make me explain it, or I swear I will hate you as much as I care about you. **Impress me** please, just once, **like you used to**. 

'Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.'  

“Please, just say it.” It occurred to Sherlock that this was a foreign sound. **Please** was not something that came naturally to him. Just as stress did not seem natural on Molly. Stress? Was that the deviant distraction?

“I can't. Not to you.” Her love for him had aged over the years. A wine that rested in a cool, dark, unreciprocated place, yet it lived and breathed. With time, the more she learned about Sherlock and herself, the deeper it grew. From a young, sharp, whimsical, enamored love, that gave attention and sought approval to a mature love with the taste of the earth it was buried in, building immeasurable valuable. Presently, she had come to terms her own optimism by developing a second self, like a skin; she still had hopes for Sherlock, but could also laugh at herself for wanting to change him. The sensible skin was thick with the knowledge that for the sake of good in the world Sherlock Holmes shouldn’t change too much. He would always take stupid risks like staging his own demise, or getting high to the point of near fatality in order to save John; to go into a den of evil impaired and falling apart. That selfish selflessness was what the world needed in the dark hours. But all that recklessness he confided in her, that damn fool, and Molly had gotten to know an inner tenacity that could bear the weight of secrecy, of his confidence, of the fail-safe that she provided to Sherlock. That was the best intimacy he had to offer her. She accepted it, wasn’t that enough! How could he ask her to open her heart and watch the contents of the bottle spill out? What then would be left of her?

“Why?” Leave it to Sherlock to intrude, even in her own mind.

“Because... because it's true.” Molly’s inward breaths and outward words crashed into one another, breaking the sounds into sharp pieces. “Because... it's true, Sherlock. It's always been true.”

Sherlock spoke as quickly and callously as he thought “well, if it's true, just say it anyway,” as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Mycroft joined John, burying his face in his palm.

Molly was disillusioned when she heard, “…just say it anyway.” It was the final icy drop in her veins that tipped the scale. Sherlock…was always going to put the case first. “You bastard!”

Pain had once saved Sherlock from the brink of death, pain and an old ghost. _If pain could save you too, Molly, isn’t it worth it?_ “Say it anyway.”

Alright then Sherlock, if you won’t impress me, you’ll have to earn it. Just once you’ll learn something from me if it’s the last thing I do. You - clever, daft man -  will learn how difficult this is. “You say it. Go on. You say it first.”

Mycroft bit his lip. **Well damn. It’s over.** Sherlock, for all his talents, was no Lady Bracknell. This is why the Diogenes Club spent most days in silence; words were weapons, the stupid ones were blunt instruments and the clever ones rapiers, knives, and needles. In their absence, there was always less of a bloodied aftermath to clean up.

“What?” Sherlock’s web of thought faltered.

“Say it. Say it like you mean it.” The implied threat being **I’ll know if you do not. I see through you, Sherlock.**

Eurus looked on in rapt fascination, but knew well enough to strip it from her voice. “Final 30 seconds.”

“I…” And suddenly Sherlock’s own reasoning came back to beat him. _If it could save her, isn’t it worth it? Isn’t this an act a kindness?_   Sherlock looked to John for guidance.

John knew Sherlock’s face too well. _No Sherlock, this isn’t kindness, but it is necessary._

Sherlock looked to Mycroft. _Isn’t this what Eurus is trying to teach me brother? That my code is faulty? That it’s a selfish entrapment to be guarded at someone else’s expense._ Mycroft stuttered, but dared not interfere. He’d caused too much death already. Despite his best intentions, he’d caused it all _._ **Sherlock in truth, was better without his advice. His own man.**

 _If it could save her, say it anyway._ “I love you.” Sherlock recoiled, not quite understanding why until the undercurrent of Culverton’s words caught up with him, slammed him like withdrawal. _Ignorance_ is _bliss - what's wrong with bliss?_ Something snapped inwardly and Sherlock’s carefully constructed reasoning broke like a rusted spring. There were many words for love. Amo, amavi, amatum, derived from the Latin amare. Sherlock himself was often called an _amateur_ detective, meant of course with the greatest contempt from others, but which he secretly adored because of their ignorance; in its original form, it did not mean novice but rather “lover of-” as Sherlock loved the deductive game. It was an essential truth. But in his mind further connections formed unbidden and unbridled. There were other words for love, he'd begged for them when it had been said so many times before - _exactly the man not to notice when there's nothing to see through_ \- an understanding, a connection, a shared confidence, a shared secret, or two or twelve, a slap in the face, an elbow in the ribs, ~~a cellphone pried from his hands and thrown into Rosie's baptismal fount,~~ an open invitation to help. A Molly Hooper. Bliss was a thinly veiled glass, and suddenly the glass no longer existed.

And Sherlock was no longer ignorant. “I love you.” Silence.

The counter clicked down to 0:14 seconds.

“Molly?” Was this how Molly felt every day?

The seconds drained away like the blood from Sherlock’s hands. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, and as he looked to the clock, he realized there were only 8 more seconds for this aggravating person, essential to his way of life, to go on staring at him with contempt, to be disappointed in him, to go on living. That was far too little time. It was not acceptable.

“Molly, please!” Sherlock pleaded.

Molly knew. He was no actor. But Sherlock had done his best. **I’ll take what I can get, isn’t that how this always works?** “I love you.”

The clock stropped at 0:02 seconds and the line disconnected.

Mycroft and John shared a beat as each came back from a suspended thread of consciousness into full animated life, and it was quite the shock as each of them seemed to melt into the surroundings. When Mycroft restored his factory settings, he took a moment to take his brother in full view. By nature he was tall, and despite being tried and tested, somehow he stood taller by his estimation. “Sherlock, however hard that was...” I’m proud of you. At least that’s what Mycroft would have said, if his little brother was not still in crisis.

“Eurus, I won. I won. Come on, play fair. The girl on the plane, I need to talk to her.” In that pause, John and Mycroft saw something they both recognized as awe and wonder on Eurus’ face. The scientist momentarily distracted from clinical rigor by diversion. Eurus was enjoying herself, though she did not comprehend it. Or rather, John approximated, she enjoyed vicariously feeling emotion through Sherlock. **Oh God, she’s an addict, she’s an addict like her brother.** She can’t distinguish emotion for herself: pain, joy, fatigue, they’re all mixed up except for what she sees in her experiments on others. She’s riding the high.

“I won!” Sherlock insisted, missing the point entirely, much like the old Sherlock would have done. The Sherlock that was only interested in the work. Except it wasn’t quite true, because that younger, idiot-of-a-man would have exclaimed “I solved the challenge” not “I saved Molly Hooper!” It was all a disguise to pall his anxiety.

“Saved her? From what?” Mycroft’s voice hit him where Eurus’ trailed away _-_ _All lives end, all hearts are broken_ – And he was right, what had Sherlock saved her from? Hardly death, a mere postponement did not hinder it. “Oh, do be sensible, there were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy?” It dawned on Sherlock that the final words of deranged wisdom that Culverton shared were w _hat's the very worst thing you can do to your very best friends? “_ You didn't win,” _\- sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side -_ “you lost.” _Tell them your secrets._  “Look what you did to her.” - _No idea why people think you’re incapable of human emotion_ – “Look what you did to yourself.” _Once you open your heart you can’t close it again._

Sherlock let go of the uncaring façade, Eurus had eviscerated it already, as he set the gun down and went to the coffin lid. “All those complicated little emotions, I lost count.” - _You always feel it, Sherlock. Pain. Heartbreak. Loss. Death. It’s all good_ \- “Emotional context, Sherlock” - _What’s going to kill you?_ \- “it destroys you every time.” Eurus had spent her entire adult life locked away from Sherlock and the rest of the world, yet she knew him entirely. In the span of three minutes, she had discovered that the very worst weapon of Molly’s destruction wasn’t a physical threat. It was him.

“Now, please, pull yourself together...” The rest of the words were just an echo to him, as if being heard through a wall of water.

John and Mycroft were so eager to escape the confined, emotionally charged space that they barely noticed when the third member of their party stopped by the empty coffin, and reverently replaced its lid “Sherlock?” John questioned. But his friend wasn’t there, distantly he was in his mind palace.

“ **No**.” No Molly wasn’t in the grave but she might have been. _You look sad when you think he can’t see you -  you can see me - I don’t count._ _“_ **No**!” _Do you have the first idea how lucky you are?  - She loves you - Yes like I said human error_ \- _You bloody moron_ \- _once you open your heart… - you do count - **I love you**._ _– I O U.._ “ **Argh**!” She saved him and he was destroying her. -… _you can’t close it again._ “ **No** , **not her** ” _I said focus! - For Christ sake Sherlock it’s not a game!  “ **No**!” Say you’re sorry - **I** am sorry -  You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you - The one person who learned to see you… **Not her** ”  ...the last person you’d think of - You machine _\- _If I wasn’t everything you think I am - She taught me to be the man she already though I was - everything I think I am -_ What would be left of him? _\- get yourself a piece of that - would you still want to help me? - Molly please! -  What do you need? - I’ve always assumed **LOVE** was a dangerous disadvantage - **YOU**_ **-** **“NO!”** _There are lives at stake, actual human lives. Do you care about that at all? - Will caring about them help save them? - Molly no, please no, don’t hang up, do not hang up! **“**_ **A-A-A-A-A-A-A-Argh!”** And without thought, without reason, he proceeded to make the modest coffin, selected with care, practicality, and economy, to a pile of splinter and ash with the brute force of his hidden strength. As if obliterating the instrument of death would somehow prevent its fruition.

John looked on at the man who mirrored him, the soldier fresh from Afghanistan who both loved and hated the battlefield just as Sherlock was beginning to realize how much he loved and despised the game. And John felt his grief.

Mycroft looked on through youthful eyes and saw his baby brother; youthful, petite, and crying on the floor, calling out for Redbeard. He saw the fear that caused his own body betraying him in fits of rage that bruised every part of him until he was too exhausted to continue, calling out for Victor. And now calling for Molly. The brother who used to tackle Mycroft for a simple hug, who he could no longer get close enough to comfort or console. And Mycroft felt his loss.

* * *

Somewhere in the distance, Molly felt ashamed. The dregs of her heart were draining onto the floor; she too sank down onto the tile with her hot tea as she cried. What had she ever done to deserve this, to deserve a man like Sherlock Holmes? To deserve this dial and dash? But even as Molly sobbed and her body shook, the pressure did not ease, it grew so intense like a champagne bottle being agitated that finally she threw her mobile across the room. A sad, pathetic proxy for Sherlock, the corner or the projectile phone dented her kitchen plaster, before falling down dead with a spidery screen. Why should she be ashamed? Why should she cry? She should be livid instead, and that knowledge gave her relief.

Slowly, with a renewed sense of purpose, she gathered herself from the puddle and solidified back to a sensible person. Stupid Molly, why would you chuck your phone? Leave it to you to let Sherlock destroy something else in your life. With no landline in her flat, Molly slammed the rest of the tea, wiped her tears, pinched her cheeks, and went for the door with Toby encircling her feet at every step. She sated his need for attention half-heartedly. “Sorry sweetie, not much left to give right now.” Shoeing the cat back into the living room, she crossed the hall to her landlady. Normally an irascible woman, Molly knew the 71-year old Mrs. Saltzman could be softened under the right circumstances, so she made no effort to conceal her blotchy face.

“Molly! Normally I’d say this was a nice surprise but you look like death!”

“Sorry for intruding, Mrs. S, but may I come in? I’ve been a bit clumsy with my phone,” she held up the collateral damage of her horrible day, “and I need to ring my brother.”

“Do come in, feel free to whatever you like. Is this about your father, dear? I know his birthday is especially hard. I’m certain talking to your brother will help cheer you a bit. Sit down and have a cuppa’. It’ll take the edge off.”

Mrs. Saltzman’s mulled tea could take the edge off of a 6’2” grown man.

“Thank you, but the phone is more than enough. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No trouble dear, perhaps before you leave you could take a look at my elbow, I’ve gotten a rather grim looking rash.” Mrs. S could never quite grasp that Molly was a pathologist, not a GP, but Molly was happy to confirm what her doctor Mr. Parson had already diagnosed as an eczema flare up if it put her at ease.

“Of course, Mrs. S. Quick sec.” She rang Patrick with the hope that he still had a spare room and his wife and kids wouldn’t be too troubled, and that Mrs. Saltzman wouldn’t be too put out when she broke her lease. But Molly needed to close this chapter of her life as soon as possible.


	2. Broken Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I love you."  
> "I know, and look what it's done to us Sherlock."  
> "Where do we go from here, Molly?"  
> "Home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Setting: post-Sherrinford  
> Italics are mind palace deductions / reasoning.  
> Bold is emphasis.
> 
> If finders were keepers, I'd still be at home; Take it or leave it, I'll show you the ropes.  
> When you no longer see me, I'll be gone.  
> So much for answers, I don't have a clue.  
> I can still hear you calling from outside my room.  
> So I take what I can get  
> (You've been warned).

MUSIC: Matthew Mayfield "[I take what I can get](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onUXMBlr5-0)" 

Mycroft had loaned Sherlock and John a black government Sedan and driver for travelling back and forth from his home to Baker Street while the reparations were underway. Mycroft was an insufferable housemate, just as his unmarked vehicle was obnoxiously conspicuous, but John made the necessary thanks on Sherlock’s behalf. Baker Street was not where they were headed today.

As they pulled up to Cavendish Avenue, John made a perfunctory cough, his not subtle approach to starting an awkward and difficult conversation. “Do you want me to…”

“Trail me under the guise of a fellow well-wisher, with the true transparent intention of acting as a buffer? No, thank you John, I think I can manage. It’s been three days.”

“What the hell kind of logic is that Sherlock?” John peered at him sidelong. Three days was hardly a great span of time.

Sherlock knew that this kind of rebuff was called a reality check, so consciously he went over the supply arsenal in front of him, selecting the most well-stocked paper shopping bag of the three bag excursion. “Best take this in with me then.” A peace offering.

“You’d better.”

“You’ll wait here then?”

“To pick up the pieces of you? Yeah. Wouldn’t miss that.”

Sherlock opened the car door and left it open to John’s irritation, a six-year old’s payback to teasing, as he ascended the walkway. “Good man.”

Molly rung him up without the use of the backup disguise he’d planned, so momentarily Sherlock hoped for the best. But when she answered the door, arms folded across her chest, he knew the burden of conversation starters was on him. He mused that it was the least that he could do.

“Well Molly, I assume you still haven’t cleared whatever bug you’ve had the past few days, so I brought an assortment of supplies: Lemsip, Beecham’s, Lockets, crisps, tissues, strepsils black current, the obscenely flavored “buttercup” bronco-stop, and this absurd oil diffuser, though thankfully it looks more promising than the one made of skewers. Dreadful waste of money, but the women at the Superdrug counter assured me that it was just the thing when you’re feeling ill.”

“Are you quite finished?” Molly cut in abruptly.

Sherlock felt tersely shortened, as if amputated above the knees. Still he soldiered on with the worst apology in history. “Yes I am. Where would you like these?”

“You may not come in Sherlock, good day.”

Sherlock’s arm stretched out with the speed of a soccer mom and braced the door. “Molly, please let me in.”

“I already have Sherlock, in every way save this one, look where it’s gotten us.” Molly used all of her small frame to press against the door and push him out, as the lock drove home in the frame. But Sherlock had always been clever. As Molly listened from her kitchen table whilst reinforcing box corners with packing tape, Sherlock proceeded to knock on the door in loud, steady fashion. When that got boring he switched to hammering away with several other parts of his body, like a simpering child. From the sound of it, first with his forehead, then his elbows until he smarted his funny bone / ulnar nerve, then with his feet. Four minutes in, Sherlock must have gotten very bored because he started changing the rhythmic banging into a melody. Molly, even in her disgusted state, had to smirk: thank goodness, he didn’t have his violin stuffed in that shopping bag, or it would be a real raucous. 

It was only after five minutes and fifty-two seconds elapsed, when Molly heard the beginning of an altercation with Sherlock and her landlady in the hallway, in which Mrs. Saltzman threatened to call the police for harassing Molly and Sherlock offered to save her the trouble by phoning Lestrade himself, that Molly whisked him through the door with mumbled apologies to her congregation of neighbors.

“For heaven’s sake Sherlock, put the bag on the counter and go!”

“I tried calling, you weren’t answering your mobile.” Molly took the smashed phone from her pocket and tossed it to Sherlock as if say ‘you can have it.’ “Ah, well at least I know you’re not screening my calls.” This was Sherlock’s ill attempt at humor, though he could tell by the freshly dry-walled, sanded, painted patch in her kitchen that Molly’s phone was just as much a victim of that fateful day as her coffin. After that he noticed the other fresh spruces to the apartment, his attention also sprung to the freshly washed dishes on the kitchen counter as opposed to filed in cabinets, the halted post, the half-packed boxes. “You’re moving, why are you moving?”

”I’m not having a good day.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. Come to think of it, you’ve been stressed now for several weeks, is this why? Is this move the secret you’ve been keeping? It’s the lingering stress that’s causing you headaches. All those hormones, all that cortisol, it’s no wonder your immune system is compromised and you’re nauseous. You probably have a case of the stomach flu, which I may have something for in here…” 

“I’m moving in with my brother’s family. I needed a change.”

“…Damn, it’s in the other pharmacy bag in the car. A change from what precisely?”

“From you Sherlock.”

Sherlock absorbed the blow and kept moving frenetically, switching beats to something more satirical and smug. “I see, well…” Sherlock proceeded to tear through the flat, every corner, every vantage point, at first to Molly’s loud berating protests, and then to her silent seething until he finally he returned to the kitchen and opened his palm to reveal four tiny battery powered wifi cameras, smaller than watch faces. “Please consider these a housewarming present.”

The obvious, unimportant questions came and left Molly in fleeting instances until she finally settled on, “Who put these in my home?”

“Jim Moriarty, presumably on your second date -”

“Five years! These have been in my house over five years watching me?!”

“Not exactly, the battery life couldn’t possibly last more than 4 hours. These were planted in your flat as a one off, god knows for what deviant initial purpose, but they were never used. Smart cameras that hack and transit via your home wifi to a private server. They were activated three days ago to present to me a seemingly imminent threat to your life. As I’ve been trying to tell you –“

“- That’s why you called me.”

“Exactly! Finally you understand.” Molly still looked dejected and miserable, but at least he had finally cleared the air with her. Sherlock waited and waited for further questions – he had rehearsed the scenarios in his head: who threatened me, who’s Eurus, how can you possibly have a sister? Some answers he practiced casually, some stoically, a few with irony. But Molly spoke no further.

Why was the floor shifting beneath his feet? “Molly,” he gave it his best attempt at tact, “forgive me for asking, but what the hell is the matter with you?!”

“You arrogant sod, how do you of all people get off asking me that?”

“I tell you that your life was in danger and you don’t question it, you don’t even blink.”

“Well you **saved** me didn’t you? That’s the point, because you’re Sherlock Holmes. The danger seems rather null and void, now doesn’t it?” Her tone was acid, acerbic, ill-suited to her disposition, she sounded so very like… _him_. It was disconcerting in the extreme. “Since you seem determined to play games who was it then to threaten my life?”

“It’s no game-”

“Couldn’t be Jim, he’s dead and dusted, Magnussen’s dead, Culverton’s detained. Maybe one of Mycroft’s men went rogue, your brother certainly has the means to make your life hell if he wanted to…”

“It was my sister actually.”

“Really? Because of course you would have a sister. Is she by any chance younger than you, because that would explain a lot.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Did I say that?”

Sherlock's face contorted. “You’re making fun of me?”

“A little bit yeah. How does it feel when it’s you?”

“Why are you making fun of me?”

“ **Because I don’t care Sherlock, I just don’t. I accept the fact that I’ll probably love you the rest of my life, but I really, really don’t like you anymore.** And I don’t care.”

“But you always care, you’re Molly Hooper; you care to a fault. It’s not like you to be lukewarm about anything, to go from compassion to ‘one-way-or-the-other I don’t give a damn’… _you’re not just ill, you’re depressed_. Why are you depressed?” Sherlock’s ears were burning with deduction in a string of conscious thought that Mycroft would call an abuse of the English language.

“It was my dad’s birthday three days ago, that’s when you called. I was having an awful day; did you even think to ask why when you came here?”

“It was your late father’s birthday, out of fondness and nostalgia and a general outpouring of well-wishers that drive you mad, of course you were having a bad day but it’s more than that isn’t it? You’ve been having a bad day every day for weeks now…”

“Christ Sherlock, would you stop? My life is not your case! If you cared for me at all like you pretended to…” Molly began, but Sherlock was determined to talk over her at every high and low. The neighbors were probably calling in a domestic any second now.

“As a pathologist Molly you should know the adverse health effects of pervasive stress and depression will kill you. -”

“If your sister managed to kill me, it would have been a kindness.” Molly mumbled under her breath, not intending to be heard.

Of course that would be the thing to shut him up. When Sherlock regained his train of thought, he set out on a small tirade. “ **What the hell did you just say?** You can’t possibly compare what I put you through as worse than death, Hooper. Emotionally traumatic, mentally exhausting, fine! In fact, allow me to help you; as someone who also experienced this, speaking to someone who performs autopsies, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that I describe the experience as sentimental vivisection, but to elect death as preferable, do be sensible!”

“I’m dying anyway.”

 “We all are, this conversation is killing me with every passing second…” Sherlock took a valiant stab at sarcasm, but it was Molly’s turn to surmount Sherlock’s attempts in what was quickly becoming a shouting match.

“I’m dying at an accelerated rate, you sad sack.”

“What?” Sherlock stopped distracting himself with the sound of his own voice, and the observations idling in the background bubbled to the surface of his mind. _Constant stress, depression, heightened intensity of anger in response to his recreational drug use that was rapidly causing his health to fail._ He subliminally calculated and weighed Molly’s uncharacteristic actions and turn of phrase: _she hadn’t yet replaced her phone even though the on-call nature of her work typically required it,_ suggesting apathy or lack of foresight or both. “No, you’ve miscalculated. Molly - ” _You called on my dad’s birthday_ , _I will probably love you the rest of my life_. _Lethargy coupled with weight loss, vomiting, and an overall pallor._ “When I called you, why did you look sad –“

She cut through him with efficiency. “You have no business asking me that! The only reason you saw, the only way I had your attention is because of these…”

Marching forward, she seized up Sherlock’s hand, forced it open and drove the battery cams into his palm, but his free hand grasped her before she could make a retreat. “-when you thought that no one could see you?”

They stood there in relative silence for a moment, Molly’s struggles and protest to get free gradually diminishing from a loud “Let go of me Sherlock,” to “Let go Sherlock,” until she finally understood what would do the trick. Molly stood perfectly still, let all the tension drain from her arm, and spoke in little more than a whisper: “let go.” The effect on Sherlock was instantaneous; it felt as though he were holding something cold and listless like… _a corpse_. Immediately the thought and sensation overwhelmed him, like an actual current down his arm, and he jolted backward with a wobble.

“Oh god…”

“My sick bowl is under the sink if you’ve a need.” Molly softened just a little, if only because she was tired of this argument.

“I thought it was finished, I thought that if I destroyed it…”

“Destroyed what Sherlock?”

“The coffin, the threat to your life, it came with a promise. My sister promised to put you into that coffin. But it wasn’t her choice of coffin was it? She’d only just gotten hold of it. You picked it the day you found out for certain you were…” his sentence withered away. Sherlock said it more accusingly then he meant it, but he was desperate and floundering and just so… “Ever the practical one, you couldn’t wait a day to start arranging the rest of your life, could you? When have you ever done a single impulsive thing in your life?” ... _Sad_.

She slapped him then, with all her weight behind it, and it rocked him back on his heels. Sherlock was glad of the searing and the steaming condensation pouring from his eyes, it provided the needed trigger to release his gaze from Molly’s. ‘You always know exactly the worst thing to say.” He would have left then and there, run from the flat if he could, fast and far, had Molly not said “Death waits for us all-”

“Don’t you dare!” -  _in Samarra._

She didn’t finish the thought, but it was as useless as unringing a bell. Sherlock had ruined a day in her finite number of days. And the resulting rage reigned down as Sherlock began wailing with the decorum of child-in-church with a flurry of kicks at all the boxes within his reach, “It’s not fair! It’s not FAIR! IT’S NOT FAIR! IT’S-NOT-FAIR!” Suddenly with equal fury, Sherlock was being pelted by black currant lozenges hurling with the force of rubber bullets, followed shortly thereafter by a tape dispenser bomb that clattered down the hall into broken shrapnel pieces.

“For goodness’ sake, since when has life ever dealt the cards  **fair**? More to the point, since when have you prioritized **fair** when you could have **fact**?”

“Since I did the most terrible thing I will ever do. I told the secret, I saw the absent glass, I said the words! Molly I -”

“Don’t!”

“ **\- Love you. I pleaded, twice**.” Sherlock steepled his hands under his chin, unconsciously as if to plead for mercy a third time, though he never begged.

“So did I. I **begged** you to stop.” Molly was near tears.

“You made me say it say so that I could understand.” He was grasping now for his point, gasping through each word. “I did, I do. I mean it, I meant it.”

Molly allowed herself to entertain the hope that Sherlock believed it. “I know, and look what it’s done to us, look what we've done to each other, Sherlock."

Sherlock was beside himself in a black mire of anger, bewilderment, devastation, but when he spoke it was soft, because he desperately wanted advice from his friend. From the woman who mattered. From **the** woman. “Where do we go from here, Molly?”

Molly responded in kind. “Home.” With that she opened the flat door, though she made no motion for him to leave. Molly didn’t have the heart for it. In your own time, Sherlock, always.

* * *

 Sherlock got into the sedan without ceremony.

"No blood drawn, that's something." John said, trying to light the darkness that loomed over his friend. But when Sherlock’s isolation didn’t waver, his gaze fixed forward, John knew that the altercation with Molly didn’t just go as badly as he’d expected. There was some sort of internal bleeding. “Sherlock what’s wrong?”

“Drive.” Sherlock tersely instructed Athena.

“Where to?”

“Wherever you like-” to which John interrupted and edited “around the block will be fine, thank you. Keep going until further notice.” Athena gave a small nod and rolled up the bullet proof partition.

John began the intellectual triage. “What's happened?”

“She threw me out.” Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest.

“And before that?” John pressed.

“She let me in.” There was a slight, almost imperceptible slouch as if Sherlock were sinking down further into the seat, curling smaller.

“Mind the gap? Somewhere in the middle…” but John quickly stopped talking when he saw the reflection opposite him in the car window, a tear clawing down the far side of Sherlock’s face. He was staring straight ahead, crying silently. John had seen Rosie cry before for attention, to alleviate fear or hurt. This was not like that that. John had seen this expression in shell-shocked militants. It wasn’t rational, it was an outpouring they simply couldn’t stop. ”Sherlock?”

“She’s leaving John.”

Not John was a bit alarmed. “Leaving where?” No response. Something simpler than, a yes or a no. “Leaving London?” A nod.

“Why?”

“To get away from me-”

“That can’t be it.”

“Why not?”

“Because she cares for you too much.”

“She despises me John.”

“One doesn’t negate the other Sherlock. Why is she really leaving?” As the Sedan completed the first turn around the block, John noticed in the distance Sherlock’s pharmacy bag on top of Molly’s bins. He tried to keep Sherlock’s attention fixed on him, but knew that the bins would not escape observation.

“Do you know it was Molly’s father’s birthday on Sunday?” Somewhere in the back of John’s mind, he had recalled. Before Eurus, before the Sherrinford affair, he remembered the card he'd slapped in the post. It should have arrived by now. A silly card, one of Rosie’s gibberish scribbles just to lift Molly’s spirits.

"What’s one got to do with the other?”

“Do you know what he died of?”

On the second turn around the block, John dared to hope he saw Molly’s face peering out between the curtains, but his friend’s face gave no tell.  “No, just that he'd been ill, but -”

“Neither do I, but don’t say anything further, just nod when you’ve gotten there.”

"Gotten where?" To what end? There was a small whisper in the back of John’s mind that sounded like Mary, and soon after he was smacking the back of his head against the leather seats. “I’m useless.”

“You’re in good company.” A third turn passed, as if in wordless mourning for a time when life was simple, before Athena said that at this rate they’d need to stop at the petrol station. Quietly Sherlock spoke again. “She’s sick John.”

“She needs a second opinion, that’s why she’s leaving.” John turned the various possibilities over endlessly in his mind. Why hadn’t she consulted him for a second opinion, especially if she suspected it were serious?

“She’s gotten a second and a third opinion, she’s leaving to live in with her brother.”

“She’s afraid.”

“She’s more than afraid John, she’s neurotic. Eurus did more than show me Molly’s coffin, she showed me the coffin that Molly picked for herself. Molly has given up.”

“She hasn’t Sherlock – really she hasn’t. She’s just scared.”

“Why?”

Missing context. “Death doesn’t scare you?”

“Not my own.”

Astonishing. “But someone else’s must." Hers? Sherlock's non-response was as good as yes. “She’s a practical, independent, strong woman who’s been used to being on her own since university. Throughout her whole professional career, she’s had top marks, separate from her peers. So she’s grown accustomed to keeping to herself most days with a few exceptions. That's what's terrifying, if things take a turn, she doesn’t want to be alone unable to take care of herself. But she doesn’t want anyone to know, so she can’t bring herself to impose on anyone except her closest family. That’s why Molly plans ahead to an infuriating degree, why she packs, those are things she can control.” There was a searching look in Sherlock’s face that John was at a loss to interpret until he put words to it.

“But we’re her family.” John expected Sherlock to question, and in-so-doing was a bit overcome by such a direct statement. Through misty eyes, the odd squad made their fourth casing turn around Molly’s flat when John observed a fragment of hope. Sherlock’s shopping bag was still the bin’s crowning jewel, but missing from the top of it was the Beecham’s therapeutic drink. So John allowed himself to speak with hope. “Yes we are, so we better start acting like it. She’s Rosie’s godmother after all.”

“I’ve wasted so much time John.”

“Then best not to waste anymore. She needs her friends now, even if she doesn’t want them. We ought to be there for her.”

“As a doctor, what’s your professional recommendation?”

John tapped his knuckles to the partition. “We should help her pack.” Clearly Sherlock did not favor the idea but John was already directing the driver. “Sorry for the wait, we know where we’re headed now. Nearest postal shop. We’re going to need some boxes, packing foam and a new tape dispenser.”


	3. Housecalls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is he with you?” Molly asked.  
> “Mycroft? No, he’s far too busy with -”  
> “The other one John!”  
> “So you’ve heard about Sherlock’s sister Eurus then?”  
> “John, the other other one! Is he here? None of your ridiculous games! Where is Sherlock?”  
> “You really don’t want to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know who's gonna kiss you when I'm gone  
> So I'm gonna love you now, like it's all I have  
> I know it'll kill me when it's over  
> I don't wanna think about it.

MUSIC: John Legend "[Love Me Now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmCFY1oYDeM)"

Molly had lost count as to how many times the same car circled the block before finally disappearing as she continued trudging on with a day of halfhearted effort.

What was she thinking, how could she possibly pull this off? She certainly couldn’t bring Toby with her, he disliked small children and her brother’s kids wouldn’t waste any time getting their paws all over him, to their infinite misfortune. But who was willing and able to take him?

So she opened a bottle of wine. One less thing to pack.

All these stupid boxes she was packing, where was she going to put them? Her new home would be little more than a room and some space in the hall closet. Did she really need her books, her plates, her anatomical skeleton? But even if she didn’t need them, how could she bear to part with them – no matter where she donated them, she was giving up pieces of her life. A double loss. It was all happening too fast.

Molly poured herself a deep glass as there was a knock on the door. She hadn’t rung anyone up, and she wasn’t about to let some stranger see her in PJs with her hair down and a glass of red.

Just outside her doorway, John sent a text to Athena. “Vatican cameos.”

Athena typed back quickly “Holmes boys and your need to complicate things. A simple 'go' would suffice.”

In response, a moment or two later a car horn laid it on. Thick.

And it wouldn’t stop. She peered out of her window curtains at the second coming of the black Sedan, but hardly had any time to make out the driver before the knocking resumed on her door and John said, “you’re going to want to let me in Molly – the backup plan only gets worse.”

“John?” Molly scrambled to the door. “I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting, I thought you were someone else.” She was about to tell John the whole story of her earlier encounter, except her suspicions were confirmed that he already knew.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been mistaken for Sherlock, though it’s quite rare so I think I’ll enjoy it a bit. Can I come in?”

“Now’s probably not the best time. The place is a mess – and the state of me – sorry, I wasn’t expecting company. How did you get up here anyway, did Mrs. Saltzman let you up?”

John winced and audibly grimaced. “Ah, should have thought of that first,” _since she’s in Mrs. Hudson’s ladies-only poker group._ “No, actually it was Mycroft’s handiwork.”

“Mycroft- _That meant Sherlock was involved._ “Is he with you?”

“Mycroft? No, he’s far too busy with -”

“The other one John!”

“So you’ve heard about Sherlock’s sister Eurus then?”

“John, the **other** other one! Is he here?”

“Well he couldn’t be, surely, he’d have to be standing right here. You’d see him through the sight and you’d have never answered the door.” John gave his best, wide, toothless, innocent grin.

Molly was having none of it as she grabbed John by the buttons. ”None of your ridiculous games! If Mary were alive, god keep her, she would help me torture it out of you. Where is Sherlock?”

There was a clatter off in the direction of Molly’s half-bathroom. “You really don’t want to know.”

Abandoning her sentry post at the front door Molly sped through the flat and the bathroom door creaked open to reveal Sherlock rummaging through the medicine cabinet, a shelf of which had collapsed taking her flat iron and hair grips across the floor. Everything else was tucked away in a box in the crook of Sherlock’s arm.

“Your Liz Earle is nearly empty; shall I bin it and get you a new one? It’ll save some boxing space.”

Before Molly could cook up an adequate reply, John intervened as peacekeeper. “This is completely innocuous Molly, trust me, even him.” He gestured to the hot mess that was Sherlock, picking up the curvy grips with a magnet. “We’re here to help you pack.”

“He told you?” Molly said, looking directly at John, avoiding Sherlock altogether, attempting to instill guilt.

This time John wouldn’t stand for it, but he spoke calmly. “I think the more important question is: were you going to tell me?”

Molly flustered, ashamed. “I was, in time.”

“When exactly would that be? With a note in the night as you leave on the train to Blackpool? We’re your friends Molly. We deserve better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“If you apologize one more time Molly, I swear,” John was about to say that he would seal her mouth shut with packing tape, but feeling Mary’s glare on him, he settled with “you’ll have absolutely no say in the packing. I’m the one yelling at you, you don’t apologize to me. You find your spine Hooper, the one you left at the door when you were going to beat me senseless, and you use it. Rosie needs women like that in her life, **for as long as possible**. You understand me?”

Molly understood both his meaning and the subtext but failing to put it to words, she hugged him. John wrapped her in both his arms and gripped her tight, if only to keep it together because there was more to say and more to do.

“Right then," John snapped into the utilitarian soldier. "Where do you want me?”

Molly picked up her chin. “Could you make a start on the linen closet in my room?”

“Will do.”

“Sherlock,” _if you really are here to help_ , “the living room needs a bit of help.” _And I can keep an eye on you from the kitchen._

“Sure thing boss.” But Sherlock was quickly such a handful in the living room that he needed near constant instruction _. No, I am not giving away my books to charity. Yes do roll up the rug for the movers. No, roll the rug in the other direction_. Soon, just after she’d stowed away all the fragile glassware, Molly became his side by side supervisor. Had she not been so frustrated, she would have laughed at his cluelessness.  

“You’re a bit rubbish at this.”

“It’s been a while.”

“Surely you did all this before you moved into Baker Street?”

“If you say so.”

“Well where did you live before Baker Street?” Sherlock was about to respond when Molly retracted “No, scrap that, I don’t want to know. I have a vivid enough imagination to dream you up homeless, in a hovel or a drug den.”

“Here and there, but primarily with Mycroft, actually.”

“Are you serious? And you didn’t kill each other?”

“Some would argue not for lack of trying.”

“When did you decide to leave?”

“When Mycroft made a bet that I couldn’t survive outside the family fold, that I would be shunned, stoned, isolated, and bored. I’d come home within 2 years, with an over-under of 4 days.”

“You left home on a dare?”

“A bet. Far superior.” Molly could only imagine what he'd won out of the deal, and laughed in spite of herself. The wine glass jostled off the counter. Sherlock made a dive for it as it hovered in the air. He landed sprawled across the living room floor, but the wine glass did not. Molly conceded the small victory by sitting beside him on the floor, plucking the glass from his hand and sipping the contents.

“Thank you.”

She could hardly expect 'you're welcome' so Molly was floored when Sherlock asked, “what do you need?” It pushed her to the verge of a mental breakdown.

“My sanity, but you’re not exactly a reservoir.” Sherlock chanced that a small smile would not put her on guard. “Barring that, it’s my request that you take Toby. I know you don’t like cats -”

“I never said that, I just don’t see that point of their domesticity in a modern world.”

“-but I can’t take him to my brother’s place. His wife Susan is allergic. Obviously, there are conditions. He’s not to be a lab test subject.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You’re not to rename him Schrodinger.”

“Pity.”

“And you need to feed him proper cat food, not just the scraps off your plate to fool Mrs. Hudson into thinking that you eat during a case which you hardly ever do.”

“I swear.”

“Don’t swear, a promise is just fine.”

Sherlock made a formal attempt. “Molly, I promise that Toby will always have a home in Baker Street,” he measured his next words with great care, “and so will you.”

Molly gulped her sip of wine so hard it hurt her throat. “What on earth?”

“Don’t mind me,” John said as he quietly migrated into the kitchen, “just passing through. Don’t argue Molly, doctor’s orders. We said we’d help you move, we never said to Blackpool.”

“But you’re not my doctor.”

“I am your primary now, I took over your case from Dr. Carlisle this afternoon. I’m still consulting with your specialists, but I’m afraid that you’re stuck with me. Now do as you’re told.” John made a preliminary examination of the fridge to see if he would need to bring over an ice chest for transport. “Are we keeping these refrigerated small intestines, or should I hunt down a bio-disposal bag?” Sherlock cocked an eyebrow. _If she had her own recreational experiments, they would have to divvy up fridge space in 221B._ Painter's tape ought to work fine.

“You can’t expect this of me, I can’t move in. You don’t understand what you’re asking for.” Even as she spoke, Molly heard John retreat into the depths of the flat, and she was once again dangerously alone with Sherlock.

“Why don’t you enlighten the subject then?”

“You must have figured in out already. Even still, John has access to my file.”

“As to the latter doctor-patient confidentiality, it has never much deterred me. But regarding the former point, **I’d prefer to hear it from you**.”

Molly took a deep breath and tipped her head back against the counter that divided the kitchen area from the common living room. Why hadn't she just stayed in the kitchen, she self-chastised. Sherlock knew the expression, the need for some kind of fix, so he pulled out his last cigarette and offered it to Molly. She stared at it perplexed. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“You don’t have to light it. All the same, keep it.”

“Don’t you want it?”

“Desperately,” Sherlock rolled up his sleeve to reveal three nicotine patches, “but I have other means of self-control.”

Molly took the cigarette between two fingers and used it as a fidget for her nerves. “I don’t think I’ve said it out loud, not even to my brother, because it makes me think of my dad. Most people are satisfied with ‘cancer.’”

 _Stomach cancer._ It’s what Sherlock has guessed, hoping he was wrong, but he couldn’t be sure as to how far along. “Is it benign or malignant?”

“Not sure yet, I’m having it surgically resected on Tuesday, they’ll do a biopsy afterward. It’s too bad they can’t surgically remove my feelings with it, this whole process would be a lot easier.” Sherlock’s small smirk made it easier to continue under the weight of the words. “It’s a gastrointestinal stromal tumor. GIST for short, the gist of the GIST.”

“We really must work on your gallows humor. Speaking of which, before you move in you must change your voicemail, every time I hear it a part of my mind has a fit.”

“What’s wrong with ’Dead centre of town’ - it’s a common idiom?” Molly protested.

“Oh please, given your occupation the play on words wasn’t much of a stretch. Surely if you’re going for humor, you can be more clever than that. It’s beneath you.”

“That’s beside the point, there’s nothing to say I’ll move in with you. How many times do you even listen to my message?”

“Of course you will! If you weren’t at least entertaining the idea, you would have argued against it and turned us out cold, you wouldn’t have made a point of contention over your voicemail first.”

“Be realistic Sherlock. Do you know the current survival prognosis for stomach cancer?”

 _Five years_ , he thought, but withheld for her benefit.

“Five years,” Molly sighed. “Just shy of how long we’ve known each other.” _So long and short a time altogether._ “If it gets worse…”

“ **If** being the operative word-”

“I may not be able to eat, or drink, or have much energy to do anything.”

“That’s only if it is malignant and metastatic. Right now, it’s only a solitary mass the size of a golf ball -”

“I can see now you were right, that doctor-patient confidentiality isn’t much of an obstacle.”

“Even still, there are outliers in the data.” Sherlock rebuffed.

 _Yes, to both extremes. Some people die in 12 years, others in 2,_ Molly thought, but withheld for Sherlock’s benefit to be kind.

"Sometimes I call you specifically when I know you won't answer," Sherlock interjected among her morbid thoughts.

"What?" Molly was thrown by the sudden veer in the conversation.

"I don't leave messages."

"Yes, it's annoying."

"Because I'm only calling to listen to your terrible, morbid jokes. When I leave messages, I have a habit of saying terrible things." His mind flashed back to the earlier slap of the day. "We do awful things to each other that break us. But I imagine we repair for the better. We learn to be stronger. You may think I haven't thought this through, but you said something this morning that I understood quite clearly. **Your life is not my case** _,_ but I would very much like it to be.” Sherlock needed a fidget now to ease the strain of self-flaying honesty, so he reached for the open bottle of wine. At first it was just something to hold, but having smelled the aromatics, finding it calming, resolved to pour himself a drink.

As he made to rise, Molly touched his arm. “Leave it,” she took the bottle, topped off her nightcap, and set it down on the carpet. “The rest of the glasses are already packed,” and offered the glass from her right hand to his left. Sherlock took hold of the stem with a nod of thanks. He was about to say ‘cheers’ when, in a moment of hesitation, he realized Molly’s hand was still lingering. She tipped the drinking glass upward a small fraction, Sherlock’s hand guiding it to his chin. He took a moment to breath the nose of it as his hand slipped over Molly’s and then let it trail over his tongue where it burst and shined. So much so that he took another sip without meaning to, distracted by the thawing amiability between them.

“Thank you,” and somehow it no longer seemed natural or practical to sit beside her. So with some minor adjustments on Molly’s part, he slid in behind her, with his lanky limbs to either side of her. She rested her back on him, he leaned his against the counter, the wine in front of them both. It was a rough and compromising position that momentarily forced them into silent acclimation.

“It gets worse. I may not always be this way.”

“What way?”

“Able to laugh, able to sit up, able to take care of myself.”

Sherlock found himself leaning over her left shoulder, in part to be heard and in part to enjoy the fresh smell of her sweater, and it softened the hardness of their arrangement.

“You won’t always have to. You can depend upon John and I.”

“John has Rosie.”

“Then you’ll have me.”

“Sherlock, there are days that you forget to eat, shower,” she paused, dreading what to say next and whether to be straight forward. “There are times when you’d rather be high than asleep. You can hardly able to take care of yourself.”

“I can. For you, I can do more than I ever credited.”

“You have to do it for you.”

“I am clean, Molly.” It was no longer the smell of the sweater that kept him close, but the warmth. In a small experiment, he spoke nearest the bare skin of her shoulders peering through the sweater. “And with wine as the exception, I am sober.”

The breath made her shoulder tense, but the rest of her eased and finally felt relaxed resting against him. “It’s not the day you start Sherlock, it’s all the days you stay clean.”

“If you come to the flat, I will show you all the days that I can be.”

“Shall we bet on it?”

“No, a dare will do. I dare you Molly Hooper.” This time it was Molly who needed a place to channel her uncertainty. She went for the glass, but Sherlock got there first. “Let me,” and without her guiding hand he put the rim before her mouth. When she tilted her chin upward he tipped the glass back. The first two sips passed without incident, but on the third final taste, the timing faltered. Wine still poured forward as Molly lowered her mouth, and a small red rivulet trickled down her chin and unto her teal sweater. Molly laughed, and then Sherlock laughed, a hearty laugh from chest that shook both him and Molly further still. With the wine in peril, they grasped two sets of hands around to steady it. Even after the waves subsided, they stretched out the moment to remain this way.

As her way of conceding Molly said, “there’s much more here than will fit in Athena’s car.”

Sherlock smiled. “We’ll make two trips.”

“Then you best text her to come back in the morning, John. It’s late.” Molly suspected that wherever he was in the flat he was still straining to hear. “Assuming your sitter can manage the overnight?”

Sherlock kindly interrupted. “John's sitter is uncle Mycroft, and he comes free of charge, so I think John can manage.”

“Hmm, have you started rehearsing ‘uncle Mike’ with Rosie yet?” And that’s when Sherlock knew she was absolutely essential to all their lives. “Anyway, time to turn in. I’ve got some spare sleeping shirts in the closet.”

“Not Tom’s I hope,” Sherlock wrinkled his nose.

“Would you prefer Jim’s?” Sherlock paused. “Has my humor improved?”

“Marginally. All the better, it gives us more time to practice.”

“Practice what exactly?”

“Hush and concentrate Hooper. It’s a team effort” And Sherlock brought the wine glass up for a second chance.

* * *

 “I know it’s not exactly what you would have done, but how does it look?” John whispered to himself as he put on the gray sleeping shirt. “I think you’d be pleased. They finally worked it out.”

“They would do after I’m gone, just to spite me. The buggers.” Mary raved.  “They really got it right this time, didn’t they?”

“It seems that way. She completes him as a person.”

“Good man.”

“He is.”

“I meant you, but yeah he’s alright. Look out for her, yeah? I don’t want to catch up with Molly anytime soon.”

“Sure thing boss.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope that you enjoyed. Please leave a comment if you feel so inclined, it helps me to be a better writer.


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